


The Empty Apartment

by Rcw99



Series: Things To Hold On To [2]
Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Sad with a Happy Ending, The Cult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-15 05:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rcw99/pseuds/Rcw99
Summary: When Bea comes home after that fateful night in the woods, her father isn't there.And her whole world comes crashing down.





	1. Coming Home

  


She’s dreading something.

Something in the deepest parts of her soul.

It hadn’t hit her until she was almost halfway home.

When they had all hiked out of the woods, said awkward goodbyes, and went their separate ways, she was still full of adrenaline.

They had survived the night.

She had survived the night.

Mae was better.

The cult was gone and buried.

Everything was okay.

And then the adrenaline began to wear off, and she was alone with her thoughts.

It first came to her halfway through a drag of her cigarette.

At first it was just a silly notion.

She brushed it off almost immediately.

No.

That couldn’t be.

He would never.

Never.

But the thought lingered, and grew and grew ever more with every step she took back to her apartment.

Their apartment.

But, what if…?

…What if…?

It consumed her now, the thought.

She picks up her pace, desperate to get back.

She has to know.

She has to see.

Her mind can’t focus on anything else now.

Her cigarette burns out and she doesn’t light up a new one.

Her legs move almost independent of her.

She doesn’t even realize where she is until she’s standing at her door.

Keys in her hand.

Shaking.

Please don’t do this.

Not again.

Not again.

She can’t go through something like this again.

Please, Lord.

Not again…

She unlocks the door.

And opens it.

The lights inside are off.

The TV isn’t on.

She can’t hear his snoring.

There’s nobody home.

Only silence.

Nothing.

The tangled ball of despair inside her roots her to the spot.

She can’t move for the longest time.

Or maybe it’s only a few moments.

It’s only as she steps over the threshold that the realization washes over her and brings her to her knees.

He isn’t here.

He isn’t here.

And the events of the last twenty-four hours hit her all at once.

There’s just an emptiness inside her.

A something she hasn’t felt since senior year of high school.

Everything is gone.

It’s all she can focus on.

And she cries.

  



	2. Finding Hope

  


At some point during the night, she’d brought out her mom’s old record player and just sat in the middle of the living room floor, listening to music.

She hadn’t been able to fall asleep.

Who could’ve?

Not when…

Not when every time she closed her eyes, all she could think about was her father, trapped down there in the dark.

Dying.

Suffocating.

Just like her mom, in her last days.

Just like she was, right now.

Stuck in an empty apartment, in a future she could never have imagined for herself.

And so she sat there, through what remained of the night.

The record she was listening to stopped at some point, and she never bothered to switch it out.

The stylus ran in the last groove, filling the room with white noise.

Her tears had mostly dried up by then, leaving her with a numbness that consumed her entire body.

It was something she hadn’t felt for almost three years now, since she stood in that hospital room, holding on to her mom’s limp body while her father had to quickly excuse himself to cry alone.

From then on out, her life was never the same again.

Her father was never the same again, after that.

And now, it was just her, all by her lonesome.

And things would never be the same again. Again.

And she didn’t know what to do.

Life had pulled another fast one on her.

God either didn’t seem to care, or he allowed this to happen. Made it happen, even.

She had always tried to follow Him, to an extent, though even she’d admit that she slipped some in more recent years. Her mom had always been more religious. She would drag everyone to church every week.

And He let her down for a second time now.

This must’ve been what her father felt like, she figured.

Lost, hopeless, and powerless.

Alone.

Scared.

But it was only as the dawn broke that another thought struck her.

It was a simple thing.

Something that should’ve occurred to her hours earlier.

She almost laughed at it. 

He had a tendency to go out drinking some nights, when he got particularly sad, to try and forget about the past.

And sometimes…

Not often, but sometimes he wouldn’t make it home all the way.

Sometimes he’d get picked up by the police and dumped in the drunk tank for the night.

Sometimes he’d pass out in an alleyway somewhere.

Sometimes he’d head out to her grave and just stay there until the next day.

And sometimes he just wouldn’t come home, for one reason or another. 

So maybe…

Maybe…

Maybe he was okay.

Maybe he wasn’t in the cult.

She held on to that hope tighter than anything before.

She couldn’t believe that he was trapped down there, in the mines.

She couldn’t believe that he was like that, that he’d ever do that.

She couldn’t handle that.

So she prayed.

She prayed to God, and to whoever else was listening.

She prayed that he would come in the door later that day, and that everything would be okay.

That was what she needed, more than anything.

He may have been an ass more often than not these days, but she still loved him.

He was family.

And she could only pray that he was still alive.

And that soothed her mind.

  


~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

  


She must’ve dozed off at some point after that, because she was eventually woken up by some sort of dream. She couldn’t quite remember what it was about, but it involved the world ending or something. It was fitting, somewhat.

Regardless, she was thankful for whatever little sleep she had gotten, because she certainly needed it. The past twenty-four hours had been…eventful, to say the least.

It was the afternoon now, and she was already feeling much, much better. She managed to push all her emotions away and lock them down tight with the hope she so desperately clung to.

It was a nice day out. Longest Night decorations were already going up. It was almost surreal after the events of last night. But the world continued to move on regardless.

She wouldn’t even bother opening the Pickaxe today, she decided. Not after everything that had happened, and especially considering it was already way past the normal opening hour.

What she needed was a walk to clear her head. She needed to get out of this place and just be anywhere else.

So, she ate some food and freshened up a little, and by the time she was done, she was itching to get away from the apartment and the emotions that pervaded the place. 

But, before she left, she checked her computer to see if anyone had messaged her.

Mae had left some very nice, heartwarming messages at some point during the night. It was sweet. She could actually be pretty articulate when she tried.

Gregg’s message was…very Gregg, to say the least, but appreciated nonetheless. He, of course, wanted to hang out and do some band practice.

And Angus hadn’t said anything, but she could only imagine his words.

It was all so normal.

But she needed some normalcy right now.

They all needed some normalcy.

And so, she left.

And she just walked for a while, with no real destination in mind.

Not even a cigarette.

And hoped that when she got back, her father would be there.

She had already made the decision not to say anything about him to Mae, Gregg, or Angus, at least not yet.

She couldn’t put that possibility on their shoulders. They’d be crushed if they ever even thought that they’d trapped her father down there.

Especially Mae. She’d been through too much to even handle that sort of guilt.

So she would go, and she would pretend that there was nothing wrong, besides the whole death-cult thing, and she would jam with them, and everything would be okay.

And when she would come home, later that night, she would find her father sitting on the couch, waiting to yell at her about something or other.

And she held on to that hope.

  



	3. Looking Forward

  


That night was eerily similar to the previous one.

After hanging out with the others, and pointedly ignoring everything that was wrong, she went back home.

And with every step she took, doubt started to creep back into her mind, extinguishing the hope she held there.

Until, again, she was standing outside her door, dreading what she might find inside.

If he wasn’t in there this time…

She didn’t know what she would do.

She was almost more apprehensive about going in this time around.

It took her several minutes to even work up the nerve to open the door.

And…

And the apartment was still empty.

He wasn’t there.

He was…

He was down in the mines.

He was down in the mines with all his buddies and that hole they killed people for.

Dying.

Dead.

He was gone.

That terrible hollowness came rushing back, double what it had been before.

And she was crushed all over again.

All of her hopes, gone.

Everything gone, again.

Both her parents, gone.

She stood there, out in the hallway, just staring into the apartment.

Numb.

And then she took a step inside, and shut the door. 

  


~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

  


She was sitting on the couch with a photograph in her hands.

Of all three of them, back when everything was okay.

Back when her mom hadn’t gotten sick yet.

Her father had been happier.

She had been happier.

Back when all she had to worry about were grades and what college to choose.

She had dug all the photos of them that she could find out of the moving boxes.

No one had ever gotten around to hanging them up.

And she had spread them across the coffee table and just looked at them.

Her mom.

Her dad…

She would never see him again.

These pictures were all that was left of the both of them.

Of him.

He was simply gone, with no warning or fanfare. 

At least her mom had had some finality.

She had gotten a whole burial ceremony and a coffin that had almost put them in debt.

But there wouldn’t even be a funeral to worry about paying for this time.

There wasn’t a body to bury.

It was trapped under who knows how much rock and dirt.

There was no way to recover him or any of the others, and even if someone did, there probably wouldn’t be much left to recover.

The only thing she could do was buy a tombstone and hope that one wouldn’t fall into a sinkhole either.

And she could look at these pictures.

A wedding photo.

A picture of them all from when she was just a baby.

Some more, scattered throughout the years, from various birthdays and holidays.

A professional photo that her mom had dragged them all to when high school started.

A picture of the three of them having a picnic, one of the last times her mom had been able to get outside before she got too weak.

A photo of only her and her father at graduation.

And then that was it.

Nothing else from the past two years.

They should’ve taken more pictures together, all of them.

She would’ve gladly taken more, if only she had known, instead of groaning and putting up a fight.

There would’ve been hundreds more if she had ever known that these would be all she had left of them.

And so, she sat there through the rest of the night, in the dark, just looking at the pictures.

Remembering.

Mourning.

And that’s where she still was, hours later, when the front door opened.

For a moment, the sound didn’t even register in her head.

She was in a completely different place.

Blind and deaf to the outside world.

Thinking about all the good times they’d shared.

But then the lights flickered on, and slow, lumbering footsteps sounded through the room and right across her mind.

His footsteps.

She could recognize those footsteps anywhere.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Her eyes widened.

Her hands tightened around the picture she was holding.

But she didn’t turn around.

She couldn’t.

She couldn’t.

She was frozen.

She couldn’t get her hopes up again, if there was even a chance that it wasn’t him.

Not again.

Maybe she was mistaken.

It could’ve been Mae or Gregg, breaking into her apartment for some reason or another.

That would be something they’d do, right?

Yeah.

Any second now, they’d say something to her, and—

“Ya didn’ open up th’ Pickaxe.”

It was _his_ voice, gruff and slurred from drinking, but it was his voice.

It burned through her like fire and her whole body nearly collapsed with relief. She let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding.

She turned her head to him and wanted to say _something,_ anything, but couldn’t find the words.

He was there, standing right there, behind her, watching her with disapproving eyes.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

He was here.

He was here.

“No less than four people stopped me on th’ way home today, wonderin’ why it was that th’ Pickaxe hadn’t opened. I told ‘em, ‘My daughter should’ve opened up today. It’s her job, after all,’ but I couldn’ give ‘em an answer.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Now I’m sure you have some damned fine reason why ya didn’ open up th’ shop, Beatrice, so lay it on me.”

He was berating her, she knew, but she couldn’t even get mad.

She was just so happy to hear his voice.

He was alive.

He was here.

He wasn’t…

He hadn’t been in the cult.

He hadn’t killed anyone.

He was still the same person she thought he was.

And right now, he was being the same short-tempered, surly asshole that he’d been for the past couple of years.

Parents have a unique way of getting on your nerves in a way that nobody else ever could.

And now, even after practically returning from the dead in her eyes, he was already pushing all the same buttons.

But, for once, she didn’t care.

He was back.

That was all that mattered to her.

She stood up, facing him, her whole body trembling. “Dad… I…I thought—” She broke off, not quite knowing what to say. So many conflicting emotions were bouncing around in her head that it made it hard to concentrate. She wasn’t used to this.

“Ya thought what, Beatrice?” He folded his arms across his chest.

She looked him in the eye, taking in the sight of him.

Something she had thought she would never see again.

She was so grateful that he was here.

She was so happy.

All of her hope had been well-founded.

Even though she was trying her best not to break down, tears were starting to pool in her eyes. She had gone through an emotional rollercoaster in the past day, and all the tension and sadness she had been feeling was melting away. It was a liberating sensation, like some horrible weight had been lifted off her.

He noticed her expression, of course, but didn’t have a clue as to why she seemed in such a state. Maybe there was a good reason she hadn’t opened the Pickaxe after all.

But before he could inquire any further, she spoke instead. 

“…I thought you were dead...” Her voice came out in a whisper.

His brow furrowed in confusion. “Dead?! Why would you—”

But then she hurdled forward, enveloping him in a tight hug, and didn’t let go.

He stiffened at the touch, not sure what was going on.

Neither of them even knew the last time they had hugged.

And he might not have understood why, but he knew that she was hurting something fierce. 

She was still his daughter, after all.

His wife had always been better at this sort of thing, had taken care of it in the past, but she wasn’t here anymore.

He didn’t know what to do.

For a moment, he just stood there, as gentle sobs wracked her body and she held onto him like she was afraid he might float away.

Then he looked over her shoulder at where she had been sitting, at the photographs spread out over the coffee table.

All three of them, smiling.

Happy.

A family.

And he wrapped his arms around his daughter and hugged her back.

And in that moment, everything was okay.

They held on to each other.

And they would figure themselves out. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bea and her dad definitely still have issues to work out, but that’s not the focus of this story.
> 
> Personally, I don’t think that her dad would’ve been in the cult. Maybe he was a part of it years ago, but definitely not anymore. Not after his wife died and Black Goat didn’t save her.


End file.
